What Could Have Been
by Fractured Peace
Summary: Had he escaped on that night twelve years ago, he could have had a family and a life among a gang of thieves. Instead, he finds the future fate demanded. Caught between his domineering creator and a creation that would take freedom at any cost, Zidane must find a way to save the world he's meant to destroy, even as a certain princess jeopardizes his only hope for salvation.


((So, over the last year, I've gotten into a lot of new projects! I got into cosplaying (My first costume and baby, Kuja, can be seen on my profile) and, over the course of that year, started about a dozen different fanfictions that just never went anywhere while I was in college and otherwise occupied with cosplay. But, with my last project finished, I've found the nerd impulses too hard to ignore so I continued one of the many abandoned projects gathering dust in my hard drive. This AU takes a look at what would have happened if Zidane simply hadn't been abandoned on Gaia. Yes, I have the specifics planned out, don't worry. xD But I hope I feel the drive to continue and I hope you enjoy the labors of my untapped nerd momentum.))

* * *

_**What Could Have Been:**_

**Chapter One: A Shadow of Death  
**

The skies were dark that night, perfect for concealment, but cold up high, soaring just below the clouds in clothes that were not meant for a dynamic system of weather. The stars pricked the sky, silent behind a thick veil of infinite space. The twin moons, or what were assumed to be moons, shone at only half-light in their cycles. Below, sea and wave turned to the blackened outline of hill and valley and on the horizon, the unmistakable rise of a city. Lindblum. Capital of industry. High captain of an urbanized populace. A telepath's nightmare and prime candidate for psychic concealment.

The dragon tilted into a slow descent, guided by the trusted hand of its master. Steadily, slowly, the world below took form. Mountains rose from mole-hills. Marshes formed from weed patches. And the city, so childish from up above, grew to the greatest industrialized metropolis the world had ever seen. He saw their bridges, their towers, their palace, and the docks for their ever famous fleet of airships. During the day, this air would crackle with the drone of engines, the burn of exhaust, and the choking ozone of unvaporized Mist, but at this time of night, the skies were quiet. Safe. Perfect for a descending dragon who may not appreciate the company of a hundred airships and a rider who, more than anything, did not wish to be seen.

They landed with a soft shift of rustling feathers and a gentle thump in the weathered, half-forested fields outside the Dragon's Gate. Kuja reached up behind his dragon's crested head and scratched the ridge between bone plate and neck which she stretched with a short grunt of approval. Looking upon his hand, it might have been of an angel. Long, narrow, finely chiseled to an artist's perfection. As he lowered it from his dragon's neck, a muted, magical light rose from that hand in a thin stream starting from the palm and then circling up past his knuckles. It danced through his fingers, tickling like feather down. He closed his eyes and lost himself in the heat, in its desire for escape, and the satisfaction of its coming release. He knew the feeling, the ecstasy of power, but he could not release it. Not yet. Not until he had gained a safe distance away from his dragon. Only then…

Zidane was curled asleep in the widest span of his dragon's back. He had stirred once maybe twice to nestle further into the dragon's down during flight, but had since stilled. Kuja crawled towards him, parting feathers as he went, to tuck a hand beneath the boy's head and an arm below his knee. He lifted him slowly, almost gently, bringing the miniature form up close to his chest and then sliding down the dragon's side. He stumbled a little on landing, his boots fumbling in the thick grass of the Gaian wilds, but Zidane did nothing but shift a little and raise his hand to clasp the thin fabric of his guardian's shirt. Kuja looked down at the touch with a frown, but the boy's eyes were still closed, hand curled firmly in place. They continued onwards.

He found a small, cleared patch of grass among the undergrowth and knelt at its side, placing the boy within it. Zidane looked almost peaceful there, asleep among the life of Gaia. The flora here had a bitter scent like dirt, but not unappealing. It grew. It breathed. It curled in bands around the bark of trees and then blossomed in leafy canopies of green and soft, fragile petals. It housed the many insects and crickets that now hummed their sweet lullabies in steady swells. It curled beneath his touch and pillowed Zidane's head as it lolled upon the grass. It was a quiet night, a comforting night, and here among the bitter scene of life and change, it seemed an enviable place to die.

Kuja removed the boy's grip and stood, stepping back only a little, enough for his safety. The magic returned to his hand. Glowing softly between his fingers, the light touched upon leaf, branch, tree, and boy with a wary kind of hesitance, unable to see, or perhaps unwilling to know. It caught a background of blackened fields and shadowed undergrowth. A tangled jungle of tree and ivy, strangled together upon deadened bark. Zidane, sprawled unmoving in a patch of weeds, face pale, mouth slightly open, clothes rumpled and half-displaced, tail limp like a lifeless snake thrown carelessly aside. His hair glinted gold in the muted half-light, blonde like all the others. Soulless, heartless, creeping mockeries of life and their master's will. But this one was different. Smaller. Weaker. A child. When he gained consciousness, those eyes would spark with awareness. The soul Garland had given him, but that could so easily be taken away…

Kuja raised a hand and shouted into the still night air.

"Thundaga!"

The light was magnificent. Instantaneous. Sprung from the Heavens, the power of gods. It erupted from the sky and burst from the boy in a glorious flash of white hot light. A buzzing bolt of electricity. The sound, like mountains caving away, like planets falling and crashing to ruin. Kuja. Stumbled back a little. The heat and sound rushed at him in shockwaves, scorching his senses, but he didn't close his eyes. He shielded them a little, from the light, but such a sight…brought by his power…It was something he could not turn away from. It was something that deserved to be admired.

There were other noises now, townspeople wakening from sleep, guards startled into alertness, but they were too late now, as stupid and unaware as they were. Someone would find the scene, no doubt, but by then he would be gone, disappearing into air on a dragon no one could touch. Such grace, such perfection, like an invisible assassin, a god of the night, an angel of death come to carry vengeance-.

The boy moved.

It wasn't a pronounced movement, nothing active, but more of a tired stirring, the same he had done on the dragon. Kuja peered through the blackened wreckage, the burnt undergrowth, and the vaporized branches, to find him, curled as he was in the rubble as though it was a bed, hair singed, clothes burned, tail scalded. There was a vibrant red burn running down the side of his arm where it had protected his face. His breaths came shallow, forced with a kind of pain that suggested internal injuries that the eye couldn't see. But the spell had not killed him. Where its lesser forms had slaughtered countless of their soulless peers, this child had withstood the greatest extent of elemental power that a mage could possess.

Even now, against the call of all logic and reason, the boy refused to die.

Brow furrowing, Kuja raised his hand again.

An airship's engine roared to life, the whir of a propeller far too close. Where there had once been only crickets and the rush of a lonely wind, now the city had sprung to life, woken by his actions and the intent of his crime. Exhaust tinged the air, shadowed silhouettes moved against the half-light of a clouded sky. Guards, mobilizing. Scouts, patrolling. And the boy, still alive. Sleeping, quietly. Maybe dying, but no way to be sure. Unconscious. Yes, unconscious under the effects of his spell, and alone, injured, lost in the Gaian wilds without knowledge of defense, perhaps never to wake, and there were so many monsters. Monsters that would do his job if he couldn't. Yes, the boy was as good as dead. If not, too injured and stupid to defend himself. Gone, at any rate. Out of the way.

He had to run, to flee from what he had done, but he would never fly fast enough.

Kuja stole away to his dragon, shrouded in shadows, hidden in the unnatural darkness of a planet that was not his own. The dragon took flight, rustling its great wings, rousing the attention of the guards, but too late. They gained altitude, now above the trees, then mountains, then oceans, and he, above it all. They were looking for him. They knew his will, what he so desired, and soon he would face that darkness, his worst fear among a world of stagnant blue. He could feel those gray, piercing eyes watching, searching, knowing his deepest desires and the blaze of sadistic longing quivering and burning in the deepest core of his soul.

His mind flashed red, and with that moment, Kuja awoke.

* * *

His eyes snapped open to darkness, the shadows of night and the whistles of wind through a mountain pass. He threw himself up, ready to flee if need be, but no. What he found was silent, almost calming. The canvas of a tent, erected for a rest in long-term travel. The silence of sleep and the slow, heavy breathes of his resting dragon out upon some lonely cliff edge. He brushed his prickling forearms against the still cold brush of a dark wind against his arms and pressed a hand against a nose which could still, somehow, smell the burnt undergrowth that had never been. This was not the reality his mind so liked to linger upon. Twelve years had passed since that tragic mistake, and when the time had come, he had not taken the chance.

Kuja relaxed a little, resting his arms across his knees and letting his breathing gradually slow. Over the course of the last few months, that night had played again and again in his thoughts, but never quite the same. The same memory. The same dream of what could have been. It had been his one chance; he'd known that even then, yet when the stars had aligned, he had failed to take action. He raised a hand against his forehead and shivered at the chill of sweat-dampened bangs pressed against his skin. Perhaps his life would have played out upon a different course had reality played out as dreams. Perhaps if he had only held his tongue, he would not find himself trapped in nightly torments of looming darkness and the ever increasing anxieties of the executioner's axe. His stomach churned with the heated memory of that dream. On the surface, nothing more than a recollection and visitation of his past, but there was something else there, he knew, stirring deeply in his subconscious. Whenever he awoke, he knew the fear, yes, of what he knew would come, the dread of a long series consequences for his actions, but deeper still, the slow, steady beat of a primal urge, swelling in strength with every memory until it burst in a fiery rhythm of utmost longing and deepest sadistic passion.

'_Kill him.'_

How his sleeping mind desired it! If only that night had played out so easily. If only he had truly felt that magic at his hand. It would have been nothing for him. The boy was then only a child and there would have been an immortal eternity to loosen the grips of regret or the slight tinges of unfelt guilt. This murderous sentiment was left even now, panting his unconscious hysteria, wiping bed-ridden sweat from his eyes. If only he had culled the threat before it had taken root. If only he had killed Zidane…

A groan shifted beside him, and Kuja glanced at the half-hidden form of what was now called his brother. Zidane still slept on the opposite end of their shared tent, seemingly undisturbed by his elder's movements and, as always, unaware of his darker thoughts. The boy had somehow tangled himself so deeply in his nest of blankets that only his tail was visible, wriggled out, as always, of its nightly prison to twitch and beat across the ground to the rhythm of its owners' dreams. Zidane had grown since that time in the dream. No longer the naïve, fragile child so helplessly tossed about by the wills of others, but a quickly maturing, sometimes even capable adolescent. Sixteen years old, if one could use such measurements when one was not truly born. And yet, his growth played like a living, ever-evolving hourglass.

_Soon._

He saw it etched on the boy's still sleeping face.

_Soon._

And so, nestled deeply in a mountain cave within a tent meant for travel, Kuja knew that tomorrow he could only intensify his schemes, that he must match the speed of racing time if he wished to redeem his past mistakes.

But still, even as he forced his mind towards Alexandria and its coming promise of release, he could not help but be held by a single, intoxicating _'If only' _and a sea of '_what could have beens._'

* * *

When they woke early the next day for the last leg of their journey, it occurred to Zidane that his brother seemed a little more irritable than usual, but he couldn't, for the life of him, think as to why.

"Hey, Kuja!"

"No, we are not 'there yet,' and if you ask one more time I swear by all the works of Avon, that I shall-!"

"Make me explode?" Zidane grinned. It was a beautiful day, perfect for a mid-morning flight. The sun was shining, there wasn't a drop of rain (which could make for a rather miserable experience by dragon), and they were so high above the ground that even he couldn't sense the choking aura of the Mist far below. Even more than that was the excitement of his destination. They were finally going back, after endless work trapped below the sands of a desert and his monthly visit to a nightmare beyond the clouds, he could already see the towers of Alexandria looming perfectly in his eye, the hand of his love held gently in his. Such a perfect day couldn't be ruined by anything, not even his brother's pissy moods or the absolutely vicious look he received as he bounded up the dragon's back towards its irritable driver. "Come on, we both know that's not happening."

Kuja's eyes narrowed. "You doubt me?"

"Well, yeah." Zidane perched beside his brother on the dragon's shoulder's, legs dangling a bit over the side. "We both know you'd freeze me first."

A silent, appreciative smirk seemed to agree with his words. "Oh, but you forgot the thunderous powers of electricity, my dear brother."

"Nah, I'll never forget that," Zidane winced, rubbing his arm gingerly. This made even Kuja laugh as he no doubt remembered their last run-in with thundara. Zidane certainly did.

"Hm…As you shouldn't," Kuja chimed softly before glancing over with an almost careless flip of his bangs. "Now, what is it you wished of me?"

Zidane grinned. "Are we there-? Ow!"

If he hadn't remembered the sting of his brother's thunder spell, he sure did now.

The shock threw him sideways and knocked him against the dragon's spine. The dragon roared its disapproval as Kuja stroked the back of its head, cooing softly in their native tongue.

"_Do not worry, Cornelia, it is only our idiot brother again."_

Zidane spat out a mouthful of feathers and rubbed at the newest electrical burn on his forearm. "Hey! I was only kidding!" he moaned, but his brother kept his attention forward, caressing their dragon's feathers in his hand.

"_If he cared at all for our patience he would be more wary of his little jokes, but alas, I doubt he will ever gain that level of intelligence."_

"Uff..." Zidane pushed himself upright and rearranged his tussled hair. His tail flicked in irritation and brushed across the dragon's back. "Geez. I'm sorry, alright?"

His brother didn't respond.

"Alright, alright! I get it. 'Don't play around when we're flying.' Enough of the silent treatment, already." Zidane shook his head and slid his hand into his pocket. "This is what I wanted to show you."

When he took it out, a small charm sat in the folds of his glove, strung up by a string of tanned leather. It was carved in the shape of a dove, carved down to each feather of the wing and curved around its small, delicate head. Its polished surface shone in the unfettered light of the midafternoon sun. He let it dangle from his thumb, and swaying there, it might have been flying.

Kuja's eyebrows raised in a look of silent surprise. He took the charm in his hand and appraised it, turning it over in his fingers.

"This is ivory," he stated, feeling at the smoothness from head to wing.

"Yeah," Zidane agreed, "Got it off a Zaghnol we took out around Condie Petie."

"Oh," he commented lightly, "I had worried that you pilfered it from one of my piano keys."

"Nope. Good old animal tusks for me."

"How relieving. I was not particularly in the mood for Garland's wrath had he discovered that I'd murdered you."

Zidane kicked his legs uncomfortably. His feet hung off the side of the dragon's neck and he could feel the wind on his ankles.

"So, what do you think? It took me about a month."

"Hm…" Kuja tested a feather beneath a thumb nail before passing it back to his brother. "There's a chip along the tail side. It would hardly gain you a hundred gil in Treno."

"Well, I wasn't planning on selling it." He took it a little closer to his chest, shielding it from the wind and his brother's judgment. "It's a gift."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. For the Princess."

Kuja paused and then sent Zidane one of those usual, scathing looks that always made it hard not to shudder and duck an impending fire ball.

"You do realize what date approaches, correct?"

"Oh, um…Yeah. Garnet's birthday. So I made her a present for it, and…."

"Zidane." Kuja pressed his hand against his forehead, as though suffering back a migraine. "Have you not listened to a word of my plotting for the last six months?"

"What?" Zidane sat up and looked at him in alarm, the burn on his arm already stinging again. "No, I know! You want to get all the armies to kill each other off so you can get Alexander. How could I miss that?" He grinned a little cautiously. "You only talk about it every other day."

"And what age is the Princess turning in the following week?"

"Uh-um…Sixteen, I guess…"

"And what happens to a member of the summoning tribe when she turns sixteen?"

His heart dropped. He'd forgotten about the ritual.

Funny how little he'd been thinking in the last few months. Sure, he'd heard. He'd known somewhere deep in the back of his mind what they were going to do. He'd even helped Kuja plan some of it, kind of…Well, as best as he could keep up with. He remembered those endless nights, sitting in the library by candlelight as he watched his brother torture himself with his quill and ink. He remembered the feverish scribbling of notes on paper, the way the candlelight played across the sickened sheen of his skin, and the narrowed, almost feral look in his eyes as he fought exhaustion and the call for sleep. It reminded him of the look of a captured Mu he'd seen in Lindblum, claws bared in the back of its cage as it awaited the Festival of the Hunt. It looked desperate, furious, and more than a little dangerous. Still, Zidane wouldn't leave. He stayed curled up in his chair, counting the hours, bouncing back Kuja's crazy schemes, and occasionally asking if he could get him anything: water, food, another ether. He was mostly turned down, but Zidane would get it anyway because it was the only way he could help. And he knew if he didn't force it on him then Kuja wouldn't eat at all.

But he hadn't really been paying much attention lately. He'd had someone else on his mind…

When they'd first come to Alexandria, she was the first woman who'd caught his eye. He could still remember it like it was nothing. Six months ago, walking through the castle gates, led along as Kuja's personal guest. "My brother," Kuja'd apologized, "Unnecessary baggage, I realize, but I truly cannot do without him." He was always so good at lying, but as always, it had worked. After weeks of seducing, bribing, and tempting his way into the upper courts, Kuja had cleared the path for them both, and they were able to stride right into the stronghold of one of the greatest powers Gaia had to offer, smiling their secret smiles and knowing more than any of that world truly should know.

The time had come to present Kuja's "little brother" to the higher courts. Kuja had said he'd burn him alive if he ruined this for him. Zidane had promised that he wouldn't do anything to harm his brother's precious reputation. Wouldn't want to ruffle that feather, after all. Then he'd traipsed right into the throne room, confident, a little cocky, a light-hearted grin aimed at all the nobles who looked at the common Trenoan boy with disgust. He'd bowed, the most dramatic, almost sarcastic way he could, and when he rose, he saw…her.

She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. Skin clear as porcelain, hair like burnt sienna framing a gentle, rounded face with a cute button nose. He'd followed the slow curve of her neck down her bare shoulders (beautiful, so beautiful), then back up again. Their eyes had met, his shocked and shaken, hers soft and consoling.

She'd smiled.

He loved the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled.

"Are you _listening, _Zidane? Or have you really forgotten my entire life's work?"

Kuja was watching him impatiently, his lips tight like he was holding back a spell or maybe an insult. Zidane felt behind hair and rubbed uncomfortably at his neck as his tail picked up a restless swish behind him.

"I didn't forget. I just…wasn't thinking."

"Hmph. As if that were anything new. I would be shocked to discover that you were even capable of thought."

Zidane said nothing, impassive except for the steady flick of his tail. The silence caught his brother's attention who gave him a short glance before returning his gaze upon the clouds and the Mist below them.

"We should be arriving shortly," he conceded after a moment's silence, "You really should hide that tail of yours before we get there."

Zidane nodded and pulled back to the rear-end of the dragon where they kept their clothes, supplies, Kuja's notes, and a tent between them. There, he pulled out his Gaian clothes, a long-sleeved, slightly ruffled shirt with a vest over the shoulders and kind of elongated skirt with a fabric which gave enough stretch to hide the ever-constant movements of his tail. Kuja said it was best to blend in. When he put this on, he'd be just the eccentric, exotic brother of an eccentric, exotic weapons dealer. They said they came from the Outer Continent. They said they were human. Only when they were alone could he feel the swaying of his tail or hear the short, clipped sound of his native tongue. _Zai-dan. _That's what he was called in his earliest memories. Kuja still did when he got angry enough or they'd spent too long on Terra. But the Gaian language had softened the consonants and elongated the vowels. Zidane. That's who he became as he shed the terracotta patterns of his native silks and replaced them with the soft cotton of another world. Zidane Tribal. It was like another name, just another alias like all the others. He pulled his hair back into its long pony tail and the transformation was complete. He crept forward to find that the Mist had thinned and on the horizon, a single, sky-scraping tower, sparkling in the sun as though made of glass.

He glanced at Kuja and tried for a smile. "Are we there yet?" he asked.

Kuja sighed with a short shake of his head. "Yes, Zidane," he answered, "We are."


End file.
